The problem is the balance of the nutrients in the water.The UV sterilizer should clear up the algae but the imbalance is still there. Just make sure that the UV wattage is appropriate for the pump flow. I use a 40 watt for my 1800 gal pond. I have to replace the bulb each year to keep the water clear.
Lost the good fight..
- Thread starter Jonergin
- Start date
Wow, it seems like everyone has had different experiences with bleach dips.
I did leave all the plant roots in place if they happened to stay in the ground. I looked in today and noticed that some of the Wisteria is trying to grow from the top of the brown stems. Interesting. I do have some little leaves poking up from the Lily bulb too. So maybe all is not lost.
Hybridtheory, roger on the no ferts when there's no CO2. I had stopped dosing. That's what really let me know my water here is full of nasties, the plants kept growing as if I had dosed them. I'm beginning to think that the water parameters that the water company put out (from 2008) are way off from what they are right this moment.
I did leave all the plant roots in place if they happened to stay in the ground. I looked in today and noticed that some of the Wisteria is trying to grow from the top of the brown stems. Interesting. I do have some little leaves poking up from the Lily bulb too. So maybe all is not lost.
Hybridtheory, roger on the no ferts when there's no CO2. I had stopped dosing. That's what really let me know my water here is full of nasties, the plants kept growing as if I had dosed them. I'm beginning to think that the water parameters that the water company put out (from 2008) are way off from what they are right this moment.
emptyhead;3953835; said:
The thought is that plants use all nutrients at a balanced rate. Your water at equilibrium has a co2 content of less then 3ppm considered very low. Could be a little more or less depending on water agitation levels.
Your tap water also has every nutrient that plants use already in it from nature. Just in low amounts.
The secret behind not getting algae out breaks is to only give the tank enough nutrients that the plants can use them up eagerly and leave none left over. So that you leave no organic nutrients in the water column. Any left over organic nutrients can support further aquatic plants. And those aquatic plants that show up first when excess nutrients are available are algae.
So once the plants use up the natural co2 that is present in the tap water. They will feed only very very minimally. And if you do not add another source of co2 or carbon then any fertilizers that you add are not used by the plants in any significant degree. And the left over's feed algae.
The only so called fertilizer that has shown to help planted tanks that do not use co2 is Flourish Excel which is a source of organic carbon and the plants use it much in the same way as co2. Many Low tech planted people use it inplace of co2 and dose fertilizer's regularly.
When we looked at a bunch of properties in AZ a few weeks ago majority of them had water softener systems. Perhaps it's something to try out?
When I had green water the only thing that (believe it or not) got rid of it is this:
http://www.algone.com/
When I had green water the only thing that (believe it or not) got rid of it is this:
http://www.algone.com/
